


Better Fluffy Than Never

by The_Myth_Rider



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Birthday, Christmas, Elsa Week, Elsa's Birthday, Family, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Lesbian Elsa (Disney), frozen, puppy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 16:24:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13104015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Myth_Rider/pseuds/The_Myth_Rider
Summary: My last ficlet for Elsa Week, for Day 8: Elsa's Birthday ~ In which Anna finally gives Elsa the gift she'd tried to get for her birthday...four days ago...Happy Birthday, Elsa.





	Better Fluffy Than Never

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Adorable puppy!Birger ahead.

"Elsa!  _Elsa! ELSA!"_

Elsa groaned as she rolled over in bed, a small smile on her face despite her annoyance at being woken. She'd just come into consciousness, and already the blonde knew exactly what was going on. She'd gone to bed last night with the very thought in mind of the many possible ways Elsa would find herself ambushed in the morning.

It was Christmas Day, after all…and Anna  _did_  stay the night in her sister's apartment Christmas Eve…

Elsa pretty much set herself up for this.

Suddenly, a heavy weight plummeted onto Elsa's side, a loud, only semi-pained groan let out by the blonde in response. She was now having flashbacks to their childhood, when a much younger, much  _lighter_  Anna would land on her sister almost every night. But oh, man…Anna was getting WAY too big for that.

"A-Anna, geez louise fetticheese, get off!" Elsa yelled, half-laughing, as she turned to push the giggling redhead off. "You're getting way too old, and definitely way too heavy for this!"

Anna pouted and crossed her arms, the act compromised by the quiver in her lips that betrayed the laughter she was suppressing. "Are you calling me fat on Christmas morning?"

Elsa massaged her assaulted side, and raised an eyebrow at her sister. "Are you trying to collapse my ribcage on Christmas morning?"

A brief staring contest ensued, but Elsa's patience combined with her sharp, still raised eyebrow, quickly defeated her younger sister. Anna averted her gaze and deflated, sound effects included. Elsa melted before the silly act and laughed, before she sat up and swung her legs off the side of her bed.

"You win this round, Elsa, but just watch…I'm going to win the next one!"

Elsa looked back over her shoulder at Anna, raised yet another eyebrow, and chuckled. "You're making it sound like you're challenging me to a WWE rematch."

As Anna rolled her eyes and smiled, Elsa stood and made her way to the closet. The redhead made to leave the room and give her sister time to dress herself, but stopped in the doorway. A mischievous grin arose on her face, as it just occurred to Anna what her sister had yelled when the redhead had landed on her side. That wasn't something Elsa normally said, but Anna knew exactly where she got it from…

And thus, received a glorious, ornery opening…

"Oh Elsa, I'll be sure to let Nikolai know she's influenced you enough you use her phrases! She'll definitely get a kick out of it, hehehe."

Anna ducked just in time, as a sock hit the doorframe where her head had previously been.

"DON'T YOU DARE."

Before any further retaliation could commence, Anna scurried away, giggling like a maniac as she went to her guest room to prepare herself. She'd woken up and immediately made for her sister's room, didn't even waste a second upon waking. Now, the pair got themselves around before they made their way out of the apartment complex. The previous sibling warfare put behind them (for now), the sisters drove their way to breakfast.

* * *

It was at their favorite spot for a morning meal, and they enjoyed every second of it. Even if the time was somewhat bittersweet, as the restaurant had been cherished by their late parents as well. But a 13-year long estranged hiatus had kept them from the place for far too long, and when the sisters had first returned to it, were beyond thrilled to acquaint themselves with the new management.

The restaurant's new owner was a lovely young black woman named Tiana, who'd taken the place back from the less-than-stellar former owners who'd taken it from her father. Tiana's father had been the owner when Elsa and Anna came as children with their parents, so their return so many years later was made all the better when the brilliant chef told her tale.

That very talent greeted them herself when the pair arrived Christmas morning, and had even reserved them a table. Elsa was hesitant at first, since the place was fairly busy, but Tiana would have none of it. Anna merely expressed her utmost gratitude, and quickly ordered her favorite, Elsa not far behind.

The blonde couldn't help but notice Anna seemed distracted as they had their meal. She kept glancing intermittently at her phone, and sometimes picked it up to make a reply, before she sat it back down and the cycle continued. Even during conversations between the two, either while she was being the listener or speaker, Anna would still switch focus between her sister and her phone.

Elsa remained patient until, finally, Anna trailed off mid-sentence to frown at her phone and quickly make a reply.

"Anna, is something going on? You keep looking at your phone, even during conversations…nothing's wrong, right?"

Anna looked up so quickly, eyes wide, Elsa was worried she'd hurt her neck.

"Oh! No, oh no, nothing's wrong! Everything's fine, totally fine, it's just, uh…umm…"

The redhead trailed off as she pursed her lips, cleary trying to think of what to say. The longer the silence, the more confused and worried Elsa became. Only a moment later, Anna looked back up at her, cheery smile back in place.

"It's Kristoff being silly and teasing me again, everything's A-okay, I promise."

Elsa held Anna's gaze for a while longer, waiting to see if the redhead was going to break and reveal some secret. But the redhead remained resolute and cheery, and Elsa decided to let it go as she sighed.

"Okay, if you say so…now, what was that you were going to say? About the pizza man?"

Anna chuckled as she remembered the earlier conversation. "Oh yeah, right, so the guy tripped, falling  _into_  my doorway, the pizzas go flying—"

* * *

After breakfast, and a quick impromptu gift exchange prompted by Tiana—which left all three girls giddy and hugging before they parted away—the pair returned to Elsa's apartment to get ready for the rest of their day. Anna continued to watch her phone and send the occasional reply, but informed her sister of no issue or dilemma, so Elsa continued to let the subject lie. While still slightly worried, mostly confused, and just a teensy bit annoyed, Elsa chose to trust her sister and leave it be.

Once the quick stop at Elsa's place was accomplished, the sisters drove their way to a Christmas party their friends were having. With the backseat of Elsa's car packed with gifts for their companions, and a few foods secure in Anna's lap (as insecure as that may seem), they made their way to the rendezvous. It was a fairly lengthy drive, but before long Elsa pulled them into the vast parking area in front of a grand house. Not quite a mansion, but definitely a more upscale residence, Elsa and Anna all but vibrated with excitement.

Luckily for the girls, a strapping, muscular specimen of gallantry appeared to help them carry stuff in. That of course being Goliath Thirion, who despite the odd name and large form, was a giant cinnamon roll who they met through Elsa's partner, Nikolai. Nicknamed "Boron" by Nikolai—for reasons still a mystery, even after three years of friendship—the dark-skinned man had quickly become a good friend of the sisters as well.

The party went splendidly, a well past the afternoon and into the evening. Several hours were spent playing games, exchanging gifts, feasting on the food and drink that was brought, and of course, some dancing here and there. Even Nikolai had managed to show up, much to Elsa's delight, and the couple had a lovely time together as well. But of course, not without Anna daring to actually tell Nikolai how her food-related curses had successfully spread to her sister. Said blonde of course chased down the redhead, who'd immediately fled the scene when Elsa shouted and Nikolai laughed.

After the party had begun to wind down, and guests slowly dispersed and returned to their own homes, Anna looked at her phone one more time. This time, a smile brighter than any she'd had before arose, and the redhead all but tackled her sister. Elsa had initially been having a nice conversation with Nikolai, when she heard her name called and once again, felt a familiar heavy weight strike her. Once the blonde managed to keep them from falling over, dutifully ignoring her partner's giggles, Elsa turned to face Anna.

"All right, you have my attention, Anna! What is it?"

Anna jumped in place as she squealed. "We need to get to your place! Now! I've got something I really need to show you!"

Nikolai laid her head on Elsa's shoulder and smiled at Anna. "Is it that thing you told me about last week?"

Elsa whipped her head around to stare incredulously at her partner, even as Anna giggled. "Yep! It's finally here, I just gotta give it to her!"

"Hold on just a minute!" Elsa ordered as she lightly glared at Nikolai, whose head remained on her shoulder and who simply batted her eyelids at the blonde. "You were in on her shenanigans this whole time?"

Nikolai shrugged and removed her head. "No, not the whole time. She's been planning this for months, I only knew about it when she brought it up to me last week."

Elsa sighed and rolled her eyes, while the other girls merely giggled and high-fived.

After a quick slap on the shoulder and kiss goodbye, Elsa bid Nikolai farewell, and the two sisters left the building. Goliath helped them once more, this time with received presents and bequeathed leftovers. Both sisters gave him a grateful peck on opposite cheeks at the same time, causing the noble young man to blush and scurry back into the house. Giggling to themselves, the girls got in the car and made their way back to Elsa's apartment; the blonde still confused and curious about her sister's plans, and the redhead brimming with excitement over the upcoming reveal.

* * *

After what seemed an eternity to both girls—though for different reasons each—they finally returned to Elsa's apartment complex.

As the blonde pulled her car into the lot, she frowned as she noticed a familiar vehicle nearby. It was Kristoff's charcoal grey pickup truck, easily recognizable because only  _he_  would deck out his truck as reindeer-esque as possible this time of year, and still adhere to road rules. Elsa stopped her car into a space, put it into park, and glanced curiously at her sister.

"Would I be correct in assuming that Kristoff is in on this as well?"

Anna merely beamed at her before she all but leaped out of the car. Elsa sighed, figuring they'd get everything out of the car later as she followed. Albeit at a calmer pace, the blonde reached her apartment door to find Anna hopping in place beside it. It was quite the show of impatient patience, given that the redhead had her own copy of Elsa's key…but still could not keep still.

At Anna's unrestrained and continued beaming at her sister, Elsa merely rolled her eyes and unlocked the door.

As the pair entered the apartment, Anna scurried past her sister and yelled into its confines: "Kristoff! We're here!"

Rustling and banging answered them, including a few muttered curses that were just barely legible. Elsa frowned, more worried than confused now, but found no answers in Anna's expression, as the redhead remained beaming. How her sister's face never froze that way, Elsa could never fathom. While she greatly cherished Anna's cheerful demeanor, such constant smiling simply could not be good for you cheek muscles.

A noise brought Elsa's attention to her bedroom door, where she just caught Kristoff say something through the closed door.

"In here, Anna! I've got everything ready, bring her in!"

Anna immediately squealed, and before she could react, grabbed Elsa's hand and pulled her to the door. The blonde hardly had time to yelp in response to getting dragged, as by the time the action registered, she was standing before her bedroom door. Elsa shook her head to try and clear it after the abrupt motion, and lightly glared at her sister.

"Is this whole craziness finally reaching its climax, Anna? Because this is surely reaching ridiculous territory."

Anna merely looked back at her and smiled, but this one was different. Elsa's face went slack with surprise at the expression. This smile was so much softer, so much kinder, and she hadn't seen that smile in a long time. This was Anna's special smile, reserved for the moments that came to mean the most to the sisters. Elsa's confusion and worry were swiftly quelled by that smile, and even more so as Anna gently took her sister's hands in her own.

"Elsa, you know I love you, right? Even with all that's happened, I love you oh so  _very_  much, and I'm eternally grateful we're sisters again…"

Not only did the redhead's words get Elsa teary-eyed, but seeing that Anna was having the same effect on herself only made it worse. With a soft chuckle, Elsa pulled her sister into a hug that was quickly returned. The pair embraced each other tightly for a while, simply revelling in being able to do this again, before they pulled apart.

"I do, Anna, I do know that. I love you too, and I still can't believe this is our life again." Elsa sighed, and shook her head vigorously to dispel the tears that still threatened. "But enough of the mushiness, you had something to show me?"

Anna's smile grew brighter as she released one of Elsa's hands, and used the now free one to open the bedroom door. She slowly pushed it open, and pulled Elsa inside behind her. The blonde looked to her bed and immediately noticed Kristoff sitting on it, something large wrapped in a blanket on her lap. Elsa tilted her head curiously at it, and narrowed her eyes at Kristoff's smirk.

"Hey there, Ice Block, are you ready?"

Elsa glared at him. "I told you to stop calling me that, now what i–"

She was cut off by a squeaky whine, and was startled to see the blanketed mass wriggle in Kristoff's grip. The burly man kept a secure hold on it, however, and Elsa didn't fail to notice he handled it very gently. Anna walked up and stood beside him, laying a hand on the mass and…petting it? The mass stilled beneath Anna's hand, and Elsa could've sworn she heard more whining.

"Anna…Kristoff…what is this?"

The pair met each other's eyes, smiled, and watched Elsa closely as they simultaneously unfolded the blanket.

Elsa immediately gasped, hands flying to cover her face as she teared up once more. On Kristoff's lap, shaking itself heartily after being freed…was a puppy! Or, a small dog? No, it was a puppy, its features were too chubby and youthful, its paws too big for its body and ears and eyes too big for its face. The little beasty was a terribly fluffy one, and the shake from being freed only made it poof out more. The pup was almost pure white, the only marking on it a silver stripe starting between its eyes, going up its head, and all the way down its back to where the tail met the rear.

It looked almost exactly like the dog she'd grown up with, living with her father all those years ago…

The little puppy huffed, as if to sigh in relief from being freed, before it looked up and noticed Elsa. The beasty tilted its head as it regarded her, before it gave a happy yip and launched off of Kristoff's lap. Elsa immediately fell to her knees; partially in shock from realizing this was actually happening, mostly so she could hold out her arms for the puppy to jump into. She hugged the pup as tight as she dared, and the little white fluffball happily snuggled back.

Elsa felt more than heard Kristoff's exit, half-hearing something about dealing with the contents in Elsa's car. She then felt Anna kneel down next to her, and barely managed to get herself to pull her head away from the pup's soft white fur. Anna smiled gently at her once her tear-streaked face came into view, and carefully hugged the blonde without disturbing the puppy. Elsa kept her hold on the pup, but leaned into the hug, nuzzling her head to her sister to make up for the lack of arms.

"H-how–how did, did you, d-d-did you find hi-him?" Elsa stammered out, trying and failing to keep her joyous crying from affect her voice.

Anna merely squeezed her a little tighter before she responded. "Ever since you showed me those pictures of Fenris, and after Nikolai told me you'd been thinking about the old dog a lot lately, well… I started hunting down places breeding or sheltering dogs for months. Nikolai wasn't kidding earlier, this took a while, I had to do a lot of hunting. But I finally found a puppy that resembled papa's dog, and…uhmmm…"

Anna pulled back, and Elsa tilted her head once she noticed the sheepish lip-bite, and how the redhead was avoiding her gaze.

"What is it?" Elsa inquired softly.

Anna cleared her throat and shrugged, "I had hoped to get this little guy to you for your birthday…that's why Nikolai knew about it last week, I um… I might've gone crying to her when I heard something about this puppy here getting sold to someone else. I was so heartbroken, I thought I'd come so close only fail you, but…"

As Anna trailed off again, Elsa carefully adjusted the puppy in her grip—who growled cutely in annoyance before snuggling harder—to hold one of her sister's hands.

"It's okay, Anna. Cleary you got him in the end, and I trust Nikole did her best to console you. How did you end up getting him anyway?"

Anna chuckled and shrugged again, finally looking back up at Elsa. "Funny you should ask, turns out the man who tried to get the pup first trained dogs for illegal dogfights. The cops found out just in the nick of time, keeping this poor guy from ending up there and freeing the dogs the many already had. Once little puppo here returned to the shelter that had them, bless their hearts, they immediately calmed me with the good news."

Anna giggled again, taking a moment to ruffle the pup's fur before she continued. "Bless Kristoff too, he was willing to spend all of today driving out there to rescue our new friend and bring him back. Thank goodness his family celebrates Yule and not Christmas, since that happens over twelve whole days, it gave him the free time to do this for us."

Elsa snuggled the pup again, rubbing her face in his fur and just enjoying every second. The pup seemed to be just as pleased, only complaining if he thought Elsa was going to stop hugging him. The blonde stood, puppy still in hold, and walked out of her room to the kitchen. Anna followed in tow, and giggled as she watched her sister carefully place the pup on the counter.

"Now you sit still, you hear me?" Elsa asked of the little beasty, who almost seemed to nod as he sat his fluffy butt on the counter and yipped at her.

As the blonde rummaged through her fridge, Anna spoke, "This little guy is actually kind of a mutt, the shelter who had him said when they got the blood test, it was shocking. I guess this little guy is…"

Anna trailed off as she listed the breeds off on her fingers. "Siberian Husky…Chow Chow…Rhodesian Ridgeback is in there somewhere…I guess he's got some Jack Russell Terrier, don't ask me how…oh, yeah, and some German Shepherd."

Elsa walked back up to the puppy and rubbed the side of his face as she baby-talked him. "You're a little mixed up, aren't you? That's all right, that just makes you special, like a wittle fewocious snowflake."

The puppy seemed very excited to hear that, his little tail wagging a mile a minute and a big smile on his face. Elsa kissed the top of the pup's head, and held up a piece of a meat stick Kristoff had given them after he came back from hunting last month. The puppy wasted no time in accepting the treat, gobbling up the piece from Elsa's open palm and going to town on it. Elsa giggled at the "vicious beast", and wasted no time in walking over to Anna and hugging her again, Anna quickly returning the favor.

"Thank you, Anna…thank you so much for him…"

Anna smiled and rubbed her sister's back. "It's fine, I'm just sorry he couldn't have been here for your birthday."

Elsa gave her a squeeze and shook her head. "It's fine, it wasn't your fault…better fluffy than never."

Anna giggled, "Yeah, better fluffy…happy birthday, Elsa."

Elsa smiled, and hugged Anna just a little tighter, the redhead returning the vigor. A squeaky, high-pitched howl from the kitchen counter sent both girls into giggle fits, however, as they pulled apart. The blonde went up to the little singer and picked him up, holding him close again as he snuggled her back.

"So…" Anna drawled as she meandered up to the pair. "What'cha gonna name him?"

Elsa held out the little beasty, the pup staring at her blue eyes with his own bright blues.

"He'll be…"

The puppy barked, and growled as he ferociously pawed the air.

Elsa giggled as she hugged him again and closed her eyes.

" _Birger…_ "


End file.
